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About the Author

Being an archaeologist was something Nancy Marie White wanted to do from the time she learned how to spell the word as a kid. She was interested in Native American cultures, outdoor adventure, and the romance of finding ancient things and lost knowledge. After earning a BA in history, she went to live in Mexico, where she saw that studying archaeology and the rest of anthropology would lead to a fascinating life. She earned a PhD from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland (home of rock and roll), and is now professor of anthropology at the University of South Florida, Tampa, and a long-time member of the Register of Professional Archaeologists.

White’s research includes finding and sometimes excavating sites of all time periods. She’s currently studying how late prehistoric agricultural societies in the U.S. Southeast became complex and why they had no beer. She also investigates campsites, villages, and mounds of earlier Native American hunter-gatherers, fishers, and gardeners, and lost towns and forts inhabited by historic Indians, European-Americans, and African-Americans. Her one kid, Tony, spent an entire childhood camping in the woods and digging, and now studies engineering. White tries to travel often in order to go somewhere different to visit archaeology. She really believes in public archaeology and the potential of the distant past to show us a lot that might be useful in the modern world.

Author’s Acknowledgments

Thanks are due to many people who helped with this book in different ways. Archaeologists Lee Hutchinson and Jeff Du Vernay read the manuscript and offered great comments. Malaysian social scientist Cheng Sim Hew asked good questions about archaeology’s value to society. Help with figures, text, ideas, and details came from Robbie Baer, Bill Bingham, Susan Harp, Ned Jenkins, Roy Larick, Erin Kimmerle, Rochelle Marrinan, Erin Murtha-Celii, John O’Hear, Rob Tykot, and Rich Weinstein. Wiley editors Michael Lewis, Megan Knoll, and Tim Gallan are superb. Offspring Anthony Orlando White and parent Adela Dodero White read and commented upon everything and provided constant encouragement and laughs.

Thanks also to all archaeologists and other scientists whose work I’ve described here; I apologize for not being able to cite you by name. I realize I’ve taken on a huge responsibility in representing the entirety of the archaeological profession and the specific work of thousands of colleagues around the world in a single (and, I’m hoping, user-friendly) volume. Perhaps readers will let me know about any errors. After all, archaeology is a continual process of finding out new information about old things!

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our Dummies online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/.

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Archaeology is exciting adventure and discovery. It’s also sometimes horribly misunderstood and wrongly stereotyped. Many well-educated people still think that archaeology is bones, dinosaurs, or fossils, but it’s none of these. Archaeological remains are things humans left — artifacts or garbage stains in the soil or ruins of huts or palaces. Others think archaeology must mean only Egyptian temples or Roman ruins, but archaeology is everywhere that humans have been, including your own back yard and even the moon.

Today archaeology is a big part of popular culture, in movies, computer games and the news. Authors write about everything from archaeology’s role in science fiction to its practical use in the modern world. More professional archaeologists, more History Channel specials on the ancient past, and more opportunities to see and participate in archaeology now exist than ever before.

This book aims to explore the science, describe the thrills, and show you what archaeology is all about, whether you want to get involved via the armchair or in digging.

About This Book

I’ve tried to pack a lot into this book to give you at least a little taste of many things in the smorgasbord of archaeological topics, including ways that archaeology affects your own life that you may not have thought of before.

Here’s what you’ll see in these pages:

What archaeology really is (and misunderstandings about what it isn’t).

The many different kinds of archaeology out there, each of which investigates different things.

How archaeologists think and how they use scientific method to reconstruct the past from the material record.

How to do archaeological fieldwork — survey and excavation.

The huge amount of work you need to do after fieldwork for processing and analysis of the stuff you dig up.

The story of the whole human career — from the first humans through modern times — known only or mostly from archaeology.

Guides to help you understand, visit, and do archaeology.

I aim in this book to demystify archaeology, to tell you what it is, how it’s done, where you can do it, and what you can learn from it about humanity. You should be able to open to any chapter and see the topic of choice, and you can also find everything on the topic by looking in the index.

Conventions Used in This Book

Here are a few little things to keep in mind as you read this book, to avoid confusion over some details.

Archaeology versus archeology

Both spellings of the word are fine. Usually you see the -aeo version because most people, including my editors and publisher, think it’s classier! But the U.S. federal government (which, in official documents, always calls itself “Federal”), and other entities, have spelling rules insisting on the -eo version. Once, when reporting a dig on federal land, I spelled the title “Archaeology.” Officials told me that (among other revisions) I had to take the a out, so I redid the title as “Rchaeology.” For some reason, they weren’t amused.

Dates

Reading about past times, you see dates given in various ways. In this book, I use the terms B.C. (“before Christ” — about 2,000 years ago and earlier) and A.D. (Latin words anno domini, translating to “year of our Lord” and actually meaning after the birth of Christ — so there is no A.D. 0). A.D. is always written before the number to make sense in Latin. These are still the most commonly used ways of writing dates in English. Some writers use B.C.E (“before the common era” or “before the Christian era”) and C.E. (“common era”) to mean the same things but without religious overtones. Another notation is B.P., meaning “before the present”; to change B.C. dates to B.P. dates, just add 2,000 years.

Measurements

Nearly all modern archaeology uses the metric system because that system is internationally understood and the world standard for science. Exceptions to this rule may pop up when you’re mapping and digging historic sites where objects may have originally been deliberately constructed in feet and inches, so measuring them in the same units makes more sense.

You may not be used to metric measurements, so in this book I sometimes give them in feet and inches. But just remember that an inch is about 21⁄2 centimeters (cm), a meter (m) is a little over a yard, and about 30 centimeters is a foot. If you do end up switching to the metric system for archaeology, you may never go back!

Anthropology

Most of the archaeology done today is part of anthropology, the social science that studies humans in all their biological and cultural aspects. Some archaeology falls under the heading of classics or some other field (as I describe in Chapter 3). In this book, I try to give you a little of all kinds of archaeology while emphasizing that archaeological findings aren’t just cool artifacts or ancient treasures but rather clues to exploring human behavior.

What you’re not to read

You don’t have to read the sidebars (the text in gray boxes) — that material is interesting but tangential. You don’t have to read text that’s flagged by the Technical Stuff icon either. After all, technical stuff isn’t for everybody.

My Assumptions

In writing this book, I assume that you the reader

Have always loved to read about archaeology or watch it on film.

Like seeing archaeological sites and museums.

Want to join a dig or at least visit one.

Are studying or considering studying archaeology at a college or university.

Love old stuff and the excitement of discovery, puzzles, and figuring things out.

Enjoy imagining the human past.

If any of these statements is true about you, this book should help you explore archaeology’s many and exciting dimensions.

How This Book Is Organized

This book is divided into six parts: Part I defines archaeology and its varieties and thought processes. Part II describes the fieldwork — finding things. In Part III, you find out what to do with everything after you find it and how complicated it is to piece together the puzzle of the human past. In Part IV, I relate what archaeology has revealed about that past — all 2 million years of it! Part V gives you an idea of why archaeology is relevant to your life and how you can go do some yourself. Part VI lists places to visit archaeology.

Part I: Archaeology: Seeing Past People Today

This part introduces you to archaeology, how archaeological sites are formed, and the nature of the evidence. I give you a little of the glorious history and adventure of archaeology and also try to counteract the stereotypes and mistakes common in the public media. I list the many different kinds of archaeology and discuss how archaeologists think about and try to solve the mysteries they investigate, including an example from my own work.

Part II: Archaeological Fieldwork: The Adventure Begins!

In this part, I describe the adventure of fieldwork, how you can prepare, what to bring along, and what you can expect. Then I answer the common question, “How do you know where to dig?” You discover how archaeological survey locates sites, and then the actual excavation and all it entails, from equipment to technique. Finally, I go over the ethical issues involved in archaeological investigation, from dangerous field conditions to respecting local communities and descendants of the people whose stuff you’re digging up.

Part III: After the Dig: You’ve Only Just Begun

The work after the dig is the largest part of archaeology. Part III explains how you process and analyze the materials and data from the dig and then how you piece the past together. I describe laboratory work and artifact analyses and then show you how archaeology tells the story of past human behavior based on those material remains. To show the wide array of viewpoints in archaeological interpretation, I give you some of the major theoretical perspectives used to understand past societies.

Part IV: Archaeology Reconstructs the Whole Human Past

In this part, I run briefly through the great drama of what archaeology has found out about our ancestors and their lives, from the time of the earliest humans through the emergence of ancient civilizations. Only archaeology brings this past alive! Even in historic times, archaeology shows much more than history can ever tell you, especially about people whose history was never written (or was written poorly). Finally, I show you how the method of archaeology — using material culture to interpret human behavior — is useful to study the modern world in ways no other science can.

Part V: Archaeology Is for Everyone

This part is about public archaeology (which is really all archaeology today). Here I show you the many different kinds of interests in archaeology: political, financial, practical, recreational, professional. I give you some case studies of recent hot controversies in archaeology. You explore how archaeological findings affect many aspects of life in ways you may not expect. I also give you tips on how to get involved in archaeology yourself.

Part VI: The Part of Tens

In this part, I list (about) ten neat places to visit archaeology in the U.S. and outside the U.S. I also include ten fun archaeological experiences. You may soon add your own entries to these lists!

Icons Used in the Book

Throughout this book, you’ll see these icons, which I use to highlight important information or direct you to interesting tidbits.

Archaeology is all about discovery! Though I discuss exciting excavations and findings throughout much of the book, this icon tells you about specific fun details of particular finds.

Archaeology is a scientific pursuit, often with some complicated processes, operations, and even equipment. This icon signals examples of areas where you need much more expertise than I can provide in this book. But at least you see the technical terms (and you can use them to impress friends).

I use this icon to remind you about the most crucial concepts in archaeology and to point out corrections or true versions of some mistakes.

Archaeology brings us face-to-face with our human heritage, whether wonderful or disgusting. I use this icon to mark aspects of human nature worth thinking about as you discover archaeology’s potential.

Whenever I provide specific advice that will aid in actual archaeological work or your study of archaeology, I use this Tip icon.

I use this icon to point out important safety-related information, misconceptions, and other dangers that may threaten your archaeological work or experience.

Where to Go from Here

Jump around and read whatever chapter or section catches your interest. Or read the book from front to back. The choice is up to you. Archaeology provides wonderful stories of the past and often high adventure in the present. It’s also very relevant to modern life. This guide tells you what basics you need to know to understand and do it. But you don’t need a pith helmet and safari clothes — old jeans, a bandanna, bug spray, sunscreen, and an open mind should suffice! After seeing how to do archaeology, you yourself can move, as the old Firesign Theater folks said, “forward into the past!”

Part I

Archaeology: Seeing Past People Today

In this part . . .

A rchaeology is exciting and romantic — the thrill of discovery, the recreation of the glories of the human past! But it’s complicated too, and much confusion exists about what it is and how it works. In this part, I define archaeology and explain how it developed and branched into specialties. Chapter 1 shows you how archaeology is unique in its method of investigation. I explain what archaeological evidence consists of and how archaeological sites are formed; you also get some of the background and history of how archaeology was developed by those early adventurers and explorers. Chapter 2 makes it clear that archaeology isn’t dinosaurs or treasure hunting or looting artifacts for sale. All the many kinds of archaeology can be confusing, so Chapter 3 helps you sort them out. To understand how an archaeologist thinks and investigates, read through Chapter 4.